There are wholesale plant nurseries, such as Bailey Nurseries, the assignee of this invention, which grow large numbers of potted plants for distribution to various retail greenhouses. Such plants must be shipped in great quantities and often over large distances. This is done by shipping the plants in large semitrailer trucks or similar vehicles. The plants are shipped on pallets which are loaded into the trucks using forklifts.
Whenever potted plants are shipped on pallets, they cannot be directly stacked on top of one another on a single pallet without potentially crushing one another. Thus, potted plants are usually stacked in one level on a single pallet to minimize damage to the plants. It is difficult to stack three or four or more levels of plants on one pallet, as is often done for goods contained in boxes, without damaging at least some of the plants. Accordingly, when pallets carrying only one level of plants are loaded into semitrailer trucks, much of the interior volume of the trailer, i.e. the volume above the single level of plants, is wasted. As a result, placing potted plants in one level on pallets and then simply placing the pallets in a semitrailer truck is not an efficient shipping method.
To increase the efficiency of shipping potted plants on pallets, the assignee of this invention has previously developed and sold a stackable pallet system. This system better utilizes the interior volume of the trailer by allowing multiple pallets to be stacked on top of one another in a vertically spaced manner. While each pallet still contains one level of plants, the pallets themselves can be stacked three of four high within the trailer, thus allowing three or four levels of plants to be carried in the same volume where only a single pallet and a single level of plants was previously carried. This is obviously a much more efficient and desirable shipping method.
However, the pre-existing stackable pallet system had various disadvantages. First, the pallets could be stacked because vertical spacer pipes extended up from each pallet with the top of each pipe having an upwardly facing, mushroom shaped cap. The bottom of the next pallet had a plurality of downwardly facing, mushroom shaped cups. Each cup was designed to fit over and nest with a mushroom shaped cap on one of the spacer pipes.
To stack one pallet on top of another in this known pallet system, relatively precise longitudinal and lateral positioning is required to get the cups and caps to meet and mate with one another. This is difficult to do considering that the pallet being stacked is supported by a forklift. Thus, to position this pallet, the operator has to maneuver or jockey the forklift to move the pallet back and forth and from side to side until the cups overlie the caps. This requires a skilled operator and much practice. Accordingly, there is a need for a stackable pallet system in which the pallets can be quickly and easily stacked without the need for extremely precise positioning of the pallet being stacked.
Another problem with the prior stackable pallet system involved the fork pocket on the bottom of the pallet. This fork pocket was a simple tube extending across the pallet from the front to the back thereof. Again, it is relatively difficult to align the forks of the forklift with these tubes to pick up a pallet.
In addition, the mushroom shaped cups were carried on the bottom of each pallet adjacent the fork tubes such that these cups could be accidentally contacted by the forks of the forklift as the operator was attempting to insert the forks into the fork tubes. The cups could be deformed or damaged, making the pallet more difficult to stack or even rendering the pallet unusable. In addition, the need for separate cups in addition to the fork tubes added to the expense of manufacturing the pallets.